Is Domestic life takes a drubbing in TV's anti-family sitcoms

"Ah, home sweet hell." It's Al Bundy of Married . . . With Children arriving at his doorstep, which in fact does resemble the gates to Dante's Inferno. Conversation in the Bundy family is a torrent of verbal abuse. "This is a home, not a restaurant," insists Al's wife Peg, after he demands his supper. "I know," he snaps. "If it was a restaurant, we'd have a clean bathroom."

The Conner household on Roseanne is hardly an abode of peace and contentment either. Mom has a constant chip on her shoulder -- about her job, her housework, her nagging kids. "They're...